Not so Hot
by Stream0Conchusnez
Summary: Aren't fires supposed to be warm? Inu-Kag, Not too gushy or romantic.


Disclaimer: i do not own InuYasha or anything affiliated with it.

Enjoy!

Not - so - Hot

The fire was warm, the tea was hot, but the frigid tension would not ease up around the campfire no matter how cheerfully the fire crackled or how bubbly the boiling water was. Kagome stared listlessly into her cup of noodles, as if she was too tired to even hope anymore. InuYasha, on the other hand, would not stay in one place any longer than absolutely necessary. He wandered, randomly slicing vegetation that got in his way, and even slicing some that didn't.

Kikyo was back. But instead of Miroku trying to reason, or Sango attempting to comfort, or even Shippo just being Shippo, they had empty silence filled with things to say.

"Do you want some ramen?" Kagome's words had been refrigerated in her cold, breaking heart and had been rehearsed in her head countless times before she let them drop like ice cubes on the hard, unbreakable silence. InuYasha quirked an ear at her.

"Yeah." They ate in silence not even hot ramen could melt. The kind of cold silence that is so tired of being a cold angry silence that it can't even keep up the appearance of anger to mask the hurt silence so close to the surface. Kagome didn't even try to hide the fact that she wasn't eating. Her raw heart was lodged in her throat too tightly. It only made her angrier when InuYasha didn't look and didn't care.

Inuyasha couldn't stay still. He couldn't stay around that cold fire anymore than he could leave it. He couldn't watch those sad eyes follow him around everywhere he went any more than he could watch them look away. InuYasha ripped up another branch of leaves, just to have something to do other than think.

He didn't have to think. He knew why Kagome was upset. He could practically feel the lugubrious stare on the back of his head, and felt it settle in the pit of his stomach. InuYasha was tired. He was tired of these cold fires and exhausted from resisting his own heart. Kikyo was back, he had smelled her around for days, but this night she had decided to come close enough for her scent to cover everything else. He had absolutely no idea what to do, but he knew it couldn't go on like this anymore. It, meaning, Kagome and himself.

She was at her breaking point. It was apparent to

He knew what the choices were, and he knew which one he wanted, but like any other person hurt by years of uncertain survival and abuse, he was scared of what he wanted.

"I'm going to go check out the area." _Of course you are,_ Kagome thought. And _I'm going to be learning swordplay from Sesshomaru. _

InuYasha wouldn't meet her eyes as he slithered his way out of camp and into the darkness. This gave Kagome a sick sense of satisfaction. She watched the trademark red disappear into the greenish blackness of the forest around them. He heard him for a couple seconds, the crunching of leaves and twigs until it faded into nothing.

Then she bowed her head into her crossed arms, and cried like her world had crumbled with the last few snapped twigs beneath InuYasha's feet. The quiet sobs soon escalated into near-shrieks of frustration, punctuated by a few violent hiccups. She didn't care. She really didn't care anymore.

There was a line, and InuYasha had crossed it too many times. Kagome was going home this time. She had finally reached the point where her pain had overridden her love for InuYasha. She was hurt too much to care, and honestly, she hurt to the point where the pain was the only thing keeping her going. The only thing she was going to give InuYasha when he got back was his freedom from the kotodama beads. After all, what use would they be if she wasn't there?

_Ah, _Kagome thought,_ perfect timing._ InuYasha came crunching quietly through the trees. Just how long had she been sitting there bawling her eyes out, anyway?

"I heard you crying." Those words… they were so strange, coming from InuYasha. It was like they had been rocked in a little hammock of gentleness before he let them out. But Kagome knew that this was just the tiniest little guilt he felt after his regular visits, and it wouldn't last long, and so therefore she couldn't let it cajole her into staying. Again. After he'd seen Kikyo. Again. After she'd cried her heart out, again.

"So? What do you care?" Her voice was hoarse, heavy, and keenly harsh. The voice of someone who was in so much pain, they had to be angry to get their minds off of their pain. InuYasha stared at the ground, knowing full well that he deserved everything she would say and do. Hell, he was expecting worse than a few thousand sits.

"It doesn't matter anyway. I'm going home. And I'm not coming back. You obviously love her, and who am I to get in the way of that? I mean, she's everything I'll never be, so I hope you'll be content. Probably bored to tears, but I don't give a damn. Goodbye." During her increasingly loud tirade, Kagome was throwing everything within reach that was hers into her already-over stuffed yellow bag.

InuYasha was still standing quietly. Letting her get all of her emotions out, that wasn't an original part of his plan, but it would probably be for the best if she just went ahead and said everything she'd been wanting to say.

"I love you, InuYasha, but I will not stay with someone who's going to cause me nothing but pain and confusion!" heaving a giant sob, Kagome finished her tirade. Furious, hurt, and even more furious, she made to storm off, but a large, callused, and remarkably gentle hand on her elbow stopped her.

Infuriated, she whirled around, ready to scream at him that she didn't care, that she wanted to go –

"I told Kikyo no." his voice was quiet, and he knew that yelling would only make it worse. But he couldn't let her leave. There was no way. Not in his fucking life.

"Oh." She froze in her tracks.

"What did you tell her no to?" Kagome was trying her damndest to smother the hope that was rising up through her throat, there was no way he was serious. He just wanted her around for the jewel shards because he knew that Miroku and Sango would not take well to Kikyo.

"Everything." InuYasha paused and swallowed unfamiliar panic rising in his chest. She had to stay. She _had_ to! "I told her that I wouldn't go to the afterlife with her, that I wasn't going to meet her anymore, I just told her that I was done with everything, and that I wasn't going to do any of it anymore. Ever." He swallowed again. His heart felt raw and exposed, standing there with his walls down. The one thing he didn't expect was exactly what happened.

Kagome sat down again, like her knees had suddenly given out from underneath her, and silent tears began making their little diamond dust trails down her face.

"I don't know what to believe, InuYasha." She sighed and pulled her knees to her chest. But she was lying. She believed him. He hated beating around the bush, and loathed liars, so there was not any doubt in her mind that he had actually said everything to Kikyo.

"but I'll trust you." Kagome looked at him with big, sad, hopeful, hazel-brown eyes.

InuYasha smiled in his eyes and his heart. They would start from here.


End file.
